


it's like kissing god (i'll die young)

by hale_and_hearty



Category: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)
Genre: Character Death, F/M, References to Drugs, at least to real life, but it's canonical?, takes place six years after the end of season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21776026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hale_and_hearty/pseuds/hale_and_hearty
Summary: "It's a date."It's a date she's looking forward to, one that brings the skip back into her step, one that has her smiling at the stars when she dozes off in a sun lounger that night. Someday, a date with Lenny Bruce.//Someday never comes, and Midge mourns six wasted years.
Relationships: Lenny Bruce (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel)/Miriam "Midge" Maisel
Comments: 16
Kudos: 110





	it's like kissing god (i'll die young)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emptythoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emptythoughts/gifts).



> I didn't know Lenny Bruce was a real person until 03x05, when my friend emptythoughts texted me mid-episode to tell me. This fic is inspired by that knowledge, and also his final conversation with Midge in Florida, which I borrowed the dialogue of here. 
> 
> Spoilers for 03x05 and, maybe, the rest of the show if they decide to follow the real Lenny Bruce's arc. Title taken from a real life Lenny Bruce quote.

Every step away from Lenny Bruce's hotel room is another regret, but Midge is nothing if not stubborn. She keeps hearing Carole's voice in her head, over and over again, has every rule for one night stands memorized. Lenny knows her too well to ever think she's a girly girl, even if she is; he's seen her tits on stage. They're at Lenny's room, not hers. His room was clean and tidy. All boxes ticked in favor of throwing her inhibitions to the wind and finally finding out what it's like to be fucked by the infamous Lenny Bruce.

All but one.

 _No feelings_. 

It's this thought that keeps Midge going, back straight, even as she feels Lenny's gaze on her ass. And God, she wishes she could turn around and march back up to him and reel him in for a kiss, but she's tired of making mistakes. She already knows that she can never just be casual about Lenny Bruce, and she recognizes a one night stand when she sees one, even if she's out of practice. So, sure, she can think about it, can picture his mouth sliding down her stomach, between her thighs, can picture pushing him back against the mattress and his face when he comes inside her, but she can't actually have it. He's living in a hotel, for God's sake, and she's classier than that even if she's living everywhere and nowhere while on tour right now. 

It's the thought of impermanence--her situation and his--that has her turning when he says, "Maybe someday. Before I'm dead?"

It's this--the idea that their circumstances could change, that they could both be in the right place at the right time and go into it with plans of, if not forever, then a while--that has her smiling, saying, "It's a date." 

It's a date she's looking forward to, one that brings the skip back into her step, one that has her smiling at the stars when she dozes off in a sun lounger that night. Someday, a date with Lenny Bruce. 

* * *

Midge is in London when she gets the news. She's high on a good performance and drinking beer with The Beatles-- _The Beatles_ \--and they're letting her preview their new album, which is slated to be released the next day. Susie is off in New York with one of her newer clients, one who needs more managing than global star and comedian Midge Maisel, and her skin is tingling with excitement.

She pardons herself when the phone rings, still flushed and happy and tipsy, half-dancing over to the hotel phone, and her voice is twinkling and bright when she answers. "Midge Maisel."

"Midge." It's Susie and there's a break in her voice that sobers Midge right up, has her hastily setting the beer down on the dresser and turning away from the boys. 

"Susie? What's wrong?"

A heavy sigh, a little wet even though Susie won't admit she's crying. "It's Lenny. They found him this morning."

Midge swallows and blinks at the wallpaper in front of her. "I don't understand." She does, though, she does but she doesn't want to. She's hoping she's wrong. 

"He's fucking dead, Midge," Susie snaps, and her voice breaks over Midge's name. Midge closes her eyes and feels her own breath hitching in her chest, the tell-tale sting of her nose as her eyes get hot. "Fucking drug overdose. He's fucking dead."

"No," Midge says, because she's not sure what else to say. No one she loves has ever died before. And Lenny--he's only forty. This isn't happening. This can't be happening. "No," she says again, and realizes she's crying only when the room around her gets so quiet it's unbearable, one of the boys having lifted the needle from the record player. She can feel all their eyes on her, but she resolutely doesn't turn to face them, thinks about puffy red eyes and smearing makeup. 

"You're lying," she says. "Susie, tell me--tell me you're lying."

Another one of those wet sighs, a sob covered by a cough, and Midge lets herself drop to the floor, resting her head against the dresser in front of her.

"I'm flying out to you now," Susie says. "We'll get right on a plane to get you to the funeral."

Hot tears are running down Midge's cheeks, and as she feels the boys quietly exiting the room, each one passing by her with a soft hand on her shoulder, she chokes out, "You don't need to fly out here just to turn around and go back." 

"Kid, I really don't want you to be alone right now."

When they hang up, Midge sits on the floor still facing the dresser, the phone hanging by its cord in front of the drawers. Eventually, she stops crying, and feels so paralyzed by grief that she can't even move. It gets dark and then light again before she climbs to her feet, her whole body numb as she moves around the room, packing her pretty dresses and neat cigarette pants and shoes back into her bags. When she's done, she shoves a stuffed bear off the end of the bed and sits down and stares out the window until her eyes are so heavy she can't keep them open anymore. 

A world without Lenny Bruce in it. It's worse than any grief she's ever felt, and when sleep overtakes her and drags her down, she dreams, for a moment, that it's death, and that Lenny's with her. 

It's a nice dream.

* * *

Lotus Weinstock makes a spectacle at the funeral, but it's better than when Midge comes home to her empty apartment after and finds a copy of Playboy oh-so-conveniently left for her by Susie, marked to a specific page. 

"One last four-letter word for Lenny: Dead. At forty. _That's_ obscene." A fucking eulogy for Lenny Bruce by fucking Dick Schaap. Midge tosses it onto the floor when she's done and imagines leaving it there until it turns to dust. She hasn't seen Lenny a while. Has it been two months or three? She'd never bothered to remember, because it hadn't mattered. They hadn't seen each other in ages and sometimes Lenny forgot to write back, forgot to reply to Midge's lipstick-stained not-love letters, and sure, he was dating Lotus Weinstock who wasn't even really all that funny, but he was Midge's. She'd known it and so had he. 

They'd come close twice more since that first time in Florida. New York City in 1962. They'd been high and they were near his apartment at the time and he'd started to give her this look, like no one had ever looked at her before, not even Joel, and her career was taking off and he was starting to settle down and she was thinking maybe it could really work out, that she really could have the road and him and her family and it would all be perfect. They got as far as his kitchen, his hands just starting to slide around her waist and her going up on her tiptoes to kiss him, when the light had flicked on around them and Midge had remembered, with a sick, guilty jolt, the reason why it wouldn't work. 

Lotus Weinstock, in her nightgown. 

Midge had extracted herself from Lenny's grip, a thousand apologies slipping off her tongue as she marched herself right back through his front door, and this time, she hadn't looked back.

She wasn't mad. She was guilty and sick to her stomach and kept remembering Penny fucking Pann and this awful, bitter taste of discovering her husband was cheating on her. Maybe this was different because Lenny and Lotus weren't married and Midge had laid her claim on him a long time ago now, but it didn't matter. Midge had known about Lotus and willfully forgotten, and the guilt clung to her all night. Maybe Lenny loved Lotus and maybe he didn't. She wasn't sure which was worse.

In the morning, he'd sent flowers as an apology, and Midge had called him and told him he had nothing to apologize to her for, and they'd laughed a while and when he got off the phone, it was to go to "some brunch thing with Lotus," and Midge shed the guilt because nothing had really happened and, besides, at least there would be a good bit for her next show about her almost-roll in the hay with Lenny Bruce. 

The next time--and last time, and Midge knew at the time it would be the last time they almost had sex, but she'd been so sure it was because the next time they got this close they'd actually go through with it, not because Lenny was going to die with a fucking needle in his arm two months later--it happened, Midge was headlining her very own tour. She was in Los Angeles and he was living there at the time so he'd come to see her show, and after, they'd gone for dinner, and both of them had forgone drinks so they were completely sober. They'd walked along the beach and Midge had marveled at the sky full of stars and, at some point, his hand had found its way into hers. It was late, close to four in the morning, when they decided to walk back up to the road and Lenny stopped her, pulling her up close against him. 

"It's you, Midge," he'd said, resting his forehead against hers, "It's only ever been you for me. What do you say, huh? Haven't you made me wait long enough?"

Midge had smiled, letting her eyes slip shut, cupping his jawline in her hands, feeling his five o'clock shadow on her palms. He'd broken up with Lotus the week before, another of their off-spells, and Midge thought at the time they'd never be on again, that the timing would finally be right for her and Lenny and they'd be married next spring and it would be her happy ending, even though it would be nothing like her first marriage, like what she thought was supposed to be her happily ever after fairy tale ending. 

"You've waited six years," Midge had told him, her voice so incredibly soft, lips brushing against his. "I think you can wait six more months until the tour's over." 

She'd kissed him, then, quick and feather-light, and broken from his hold to run barefoot up the beach, high heels clutched in one hand, laughter tearing from her throat. He'd run after her, got them a cab back to her hotel, wished her goodnight with a dreamy look in his eyes, and Midge had waved and run after the cab until it turned onto another street. 

That was the last she saw of him. Taillights on a busy LA casino strip. 

Two weeks later, she heard he was back with Lotus, and started sending those not-love letters of hers, the ones she kissed with her very own Mrs. Maisel lipstick from B Altman, the ones where she told him how much she missed him and what life would be like for them when the tour ended. Two months after that, and he was dead. 

Joel finds her on the floor of her apartment later, in some kind of drunken stupor with an empty bottle of wine next to her. He'd helped her up and she'd bawled, bawled her fucking eyes out because Lenny wasn't supposed to die like that. He was supposed to be old and gray and wrinkly and die in Midge's bed, her ring on his finger. 

Joel helps her out of her funeral dress and into a nightgown, and Midge doesn't have the brain energy to wonder where his perfect little new wife is, or who's got their children right now. She lets him manhandle her into the bed and, when he goes to leave, reaches out with what little strength she's got left in her and grabs his sleeve, tugging him back down to the mattress.

"No," she says hoarsely, "Stay. Please?"

And because it's Joel, and because he's never been able to deny her anything, he stays. He holds her through the night, while she cries and talks about Lenny--the wedding they were going to have one day and the way his smile always looked more like a smirk because of his hooded eyes and how much she really loved him and how, the first time he ever saw her perform, she showed the entire room her tits and drunkenly complained talking about Joel leaving her. And Joel, bless him, lets her talk, even asks questions about him until Midge passes out. 

And when she wakes up in the morning, with a headache and puffy eyes, she takes an aspirin and starts her hangover beauty routine and opens all the curtains to let sunlight stream in over her dusty, underused apartment. She makes coffee and breakfast and walks Joel to the door when he leaves, kissing her forehead, and as she closes the door behind him, she tells herself, Tits up, and straightens her spine. 

Midge might have missed Lenny's someday, the one before he died, but there were other somedays. And someday, Midge would be dead, too, and then, she'd keep the date. Someday.

**Author's Note:**

> As this is based on Lenny's actual life and death, if there are any weird niche Lenny Bruce enthusiasts out there (I'm not judging, I've become one of them and now know way more than any sane person should about him) let me know if I got anything wrong. I tried to work with real life dates/locations/girlfriends as much as I could, but it wasn't exactly easy to figure out who Lenny Bruce was dating in 1962. My very best guess was Lotus Weinstock, the comedian he was dating when he died, so that's what I went with here.
> 
> On the subject of Lotus Weinstock: Midge's opinion of her comedy does not reflect my own, because I've never actually heard it. I'm sure she was very funny.


End file.
